NO SCIENCE—HUH?
Lawyers don't invent more-efficient solar panels. Engineers do. Corporate sustainability managers don't create carbon-sequestration techniques. Engineers do. Organic farmers don't discover ways to bring electricity to the billion-plus who are burning biomass indoors for light and energy, creating an environmental hazard that kills. Engineers do. So where are the engineers in "Hot Jobs for a Warming Planet" (November/December 2007)?
Charlie Truitt
Prairie Village, Kansas

Activism without science and engineering is like hiking without a map: It's easy to get lost.
Seth Stein
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Northwestern University
Evanston, Illinois

"MOTORHEADS"? UH-UH.
I just finished reading "Yeeehaaa!" (November/December 2007), and I am seriously offended. I am a 37-year-old woman with a master's degree. I believe--and others in my local Jeep club would wholeheartedly agree--that being an off-road enthusiast and environmentalist are not mutually exclusive.
B. J. Pontalion
Lee's Summit, Missouri

"Yeeehaaa!" was poor journalism. You employed dramatics, bias, and buzzwords; described only the bad apples; and grouped us as one homogenous bunch of redneck, uneducated men. If four-wheeling normally resulted in "DUIs, assaults, rapes"; "crushed limbs"; "people who died quietly or loudly"; "incidents ... ending in paraplegia"; and "lasting scars on delicate riparian ecosystems," I would not have made a bunch of responsible, mature friends. Lumping Jeep drivers in with ATVers as a gang of "motorheads" out to assault the planet is deceiving.

My backpacking and skiing days are over because of an injury, and I enjoy taking my Jeep on designated trails, climbing rocks, mudding, and being in the outdoors, with thrills, challenges, and adventure.
Christine Bell
Pottstown, Pennsylvania

There used to be a backroad explorers section in the Sierra Club's Angeles Chapter in Southern California. Then the Club decided to demonize the off-roading community and began a campaign to close access to motorized recreation. No other group of recreationists has been so unjustly vilified and discriminated against. If we hikers were to have our access revoked and all our favorite trails closed, we'd be knocking down signs too.

If the Club had stayed involved in that sector of recreation, it could have had a positive effect on the sport. Now "eco-freaks" want to close vehicle trails everywhere, and "motorheads" want to run roughshod everywhere, both just to spite the hell out of each other.
Deborah Y. Nakamoto
Temple City, California

YOU'RE ELATED? YEEHAA!
The November/December 2007 issue was a delight! I came away elated and hopeful.
Marion Davidson
Bend, Oregon

ON THE WEB See which campuses readers think should have made our 10 coolest schools list--and submit your own suggestions--at sierraclub.org/sierra/schools.

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